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Rwanda: a record of genocide
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12/2004 |
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Rwanda: a record of genocide
Linda Melvern:
Conspiracy to Murder.
The Rwandan Genocide.
London/New York, Verso 2004, 358 pp.,
$ 25.00, ISBN: 1859845886
April 6, 2004 marked the tenth anniversary of the day on which the plane carrying the then president of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, was shot down as it came in to land at Kigali. The assassination unleashed the most widespread genocide since the Second World War. In the hundred days after the incident, at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. The story of the crime is told here by British journalist Linda Melvern. Published simultaneously in English and German, her book is the result of years of personal research into the background of the events in the small Central African state.
Melvern’s publication gets its dynamite from its exclusive sources. As well as drawing on correspondence between the desperate commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) and phlegmatic headquarters staff in New York, the author also had access to a previously unpublished confession made to the International Rwanda Tribunal in Arusha by the prime minister of the government that presided over the genocide, Jeran Kambanda. More raw material is provided by the journalist’s own work, analysis of standard works on the Rwandan genocide (including those by Gérard Prunier, Alison Des Forges and Thomas P. M. Barnett), interviews with key protagonists and masses of grey literature. Sources are meticulously documented, though this in no way impinges on the readability of the book.
The author portrays the horror scenario of a secretly planned yet at the same time repeatedly announced act of genocide. She insistently points to the accelerated rise of Hutu extremists at the hub of power and heart of the Rwandan state apparatus following the invasion by the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1990.
The book tells of France’s complicity with the murderers and the ignorance of the other major powers reflected in the scandalous manoeuvring of the UN Security Council. But as the publisher’s advertising makes clear, this is by no means its only focus.
Melvern’s book is a timely publication. On the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan president’s assassination, a French magistrate presented a previously unpublished report concluding that the presidential plane was shot down by the RPF. This at least questionable hypothesis is convenient for those who for years – and sometimes for patently selfish reasons – have sought to link the genocide with the RPF invasion and the war crimes committed by the rebels. Melvern’s very impressive observations indicate that the 1994 massacre was not a spontaneous reaction but a crime planned in detail and executed in cold blood.
Ruben Eberlein
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